Aliger entered the world a youth of lively imagination, extensive views,
and untainted principles. His curiosity incited him to range from place
to place, and try all the varieties of conversation; his elegance of
address and fertility of ideas gained him friends wherever he appeared;
or at least he found the general kindness of reception always shown to a
young man whose birth and fortune give him a claim to notice, and who
has neither by vice nor folly destroyed his privileges. Aliger was
pleased with this general smile of mankind, and was industrious to
preserve it by compliance and officiousness, but did not suffer his
desire of pleasing to vitiate his integrity. It was his established
maxim, that a promise is never to be broken; nor was it without long
reluctance that he once suffered himself to be drawn away from a festal
engagement by the importunity of another company.
He spent the evening, as is usual in the rudiments of vice, in
perturbation and imperfect enjoyment, and met his disappointed friends
in the morning with confusion and excuses. His companions, not
accustomed to such scrupulous anxiety, laughed at his uneasiness,
compounded the offence for a bottle, gave him courage to break his word
again, and again levied the penalty.
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